The short answer: Meet has no way to do that. There are alternatives, each with its own cost, and there's a way to do it inside the meeting with a Chrome extension. This guide covers both.

Can you send a private message in Google Meet?

Not from the call's chat. At the time of writing, the chat in a Meet meeting has no one-to-one direct messages: everything you write there is seen by every participant, the client included.

So when someone looks up how to send a private message in Meet, they're really looking for something else: a side channel their teammate sees right away and nobody else can see. Those are two conditions, and most options meet only one.

The alternatives, and why they fail in a meeting

Meet's chat

It's the most convenient option and the most dangerous one. The message goes to the whole call. "Don't give a price yet" in the meeting chat is a message for the client.

Slack, Google Chat or Teams

The message is private, but it lives in another app. Your teammate is watching the meeting, as they should, so they see it late or not at all. And if they're sharing their screen, the notification can pop up on top of what they're showing. Muting notifications removes that risk, but it also means they won't see your message.

WhatsApp or a text message

It reaches the phone quickly, but nobody looks at their phone while talking to a client. If they do, the client notices.

A gesture or a look

It works for what you can say with one hand: "wrap it up", "keep going", "your turn". It doesn't work for "ask about volume", and it isn't invisible either: the client is looking at the same faces.

Breakout rooms or a break

Breakout rooms split a meeting into parts. They're made for workshops, not for whispering: if you both leave, the client is left alone; if one of you leaves, it shows. Asking for a break works once per meeting, not every time you need to give a cue.

A shared document

Some teams keep a document open to pass notes. It makes your teammate look at another tab, and if they ever share that window, the client reads everything.

How to do it with Psst, step by step

Psst is a Chrome extension that puts the message where your teammate is already looking: over your camera, on their Meet screen. Nobody else sees it.

1. Install Psst in Chrome from psst.team and sign in with your Google account, the same one you use for Meet.
2. Set up your team. Add your teammate by email; they get a link, accept, and that's it. You both need the extension.
3. Both of you join the meeting. A quiet grey mark appears next to your teammate's name. Nothing else in Meet changes.
4. Click their tile and type. Up to 140 characters; Enter sends it. You can also open it with Alt+P from anywhere in Meet, pick your teammate by name, or add several people at once.
5. Your teammate sees it over your camera for 7 seconds and answers with 👍, 👎 or a short reply, which you see over their tile.

It works on Google Meet with Chrome on a computer. It doesn't work in the Meet mobile app or on other video call platforms.

What the client sees: nothing

The message is drawn in your teammate's browser, not in the video. It doesn't appear in the recording or the meeting transcript, and it isn't stored anywhere: it travels end-to-end encrypted and disappears after 7 seconds.

Screen sharing is the only delicate moment, and it's covered like this:

• If you share your screen from Meet, Psst hides before Meet starts broadcasting.
• If your teammate is presenting, you can't write to them: their tile says "presenting".
• If you share with another app, like Zoom or OBS, Psst can't know. That's what Alt+Shift+P is for: it turns on safe mode and hides everything.

The details are in the privacy policy.

Three tips to use it well

• One idea per message. "Don't give a price yet", "ask about volume", "let's close in 5". They can be read at a glance while your teammate keeps talking.
• Agree beforehand on who leads the meeting. A private message is for correcting the course, not for running the call from the back seat.
• Save the long stuff for later. If the idea doesn't fit in 140 characters, it probably belongs in the debrief.

And one rule that isn't a tip: Psst is not for secretly helping someone who is supposed to manage on their own, like in an exam or a job interview.

If you want to know where the idea came from, we tell the story in why we built Psst. Psst is free during the beta.

"Don't give a price yet." "Ask about volume." "Let's not waive the setup fee for these guys." Five or six words that are worth a lot at the right second and nothing a minute later.

Psst was born from the last one.

The message that arrived too late

For a long time we handled it the way almost everyone does: with a Slack message. While my partner talked to the client, I typed in another window and hoped they'd see it.

They didn't. And that made sense: they were watching the meeting, which is exactly what they were supposed to do. By the time they opened Slack, the setup fee was already gone. The line had arrived too late, and in a negotiation arriving late is the same as not arriving at all.

The other version of the problem was worse. If the person talking was sharing their screen, the Slack notification could pop up on top of whatever they were showing. "Let's not waive the setup fee" on the screen the client is looking at isn't a lost message. It's a message delivered to the wrong person.

What we tried first

Before writing a line of code, we went through what we already had. None of the options met both conditions at once: your teammate sees it right away, and nobody else sees it at all.

• Meet's chat is right there, but it goes to every participant. It has no private one-to-one messages, so writing there means writing to the client too.
• Slack or any team chat isn't where your teammate is looking, and its notifications can slip into a shared screen.
• WhatsApp means looking at your phone mid-meeting. Nobody does that while talking to a client, and if they do, it shows.
• Looks and gestures work for "wrap it up" or "keep going", not for "ask about volume". And the client sees them too.

The place your teammate is already looking is the meeting itself: the faces on the call. That's where the message had to show up.

What it had to do, and what it didn't

Psst is a Chrome extension for Google Meet. When two people from the same team are in the same meeting, each one sees a small mark next to the other's name. One click on their tile, a line of up to 140 characters, Enter. Your teammate sees it over your camera, on their screen, and nobody else does.

The decisions came from real calls:

• Short. 140 characters are enough for a cue. If it takes a paragraph, it's not for the middle of a meeting.
• Ephemeral. The message shows for 7 seconds and disappears. There's no history, no inbox, no search.
• Answerable. Whoever gets it taps 👍 or 👎, or replies with another line. The sender knows it landed.
• Quiet. Nothing floating, and nothing in Meet changes beyond that mark next to the name.

What we left out was just as deliberate: no long messages, no attachments, no other platforms. Today it works on Google Meet with Chrome on a computer, and nowhere else.

Truly private, or nothing

A message that doesn't arrive is a minor problem. A message that shows up on a screen other people can see is the end of the product. That rule shapes everything else.

If you share your screen from Meet, Psst hides before Meet starts broadcasting. If your teammate is presenting, you can't write to them: their tile says "presenting" and won't open. Whenever there's any doubt about whether someone is sharing their screen, Psst shows nothing.

Messages are end-to-end encrypted: the server passes them from one browser to the other without being able to read them, and doesn't store them. They're drawn in the recipient's browser, so they never appear in the video, the recording or the meeting transcript.

There's one limit we'd rather say out loud: if you share your screen with another app, like Zoom or OBS, Psst can't know. For those cases there's a shortcut, Alt+Shift+P, which turns on safe mode and hides everything at once.

What's next

Psst is in beta and free while it lasts. After that it will cost USD 4.99 per month per team, with unlimited seats, and we'll let you know before charging anything.

It isn't for everything, either. It's not for secretly helping someone who is supposed to manage on their own, like in an exam or a job interview. That's in the terms, and we take it seriously.

It's for what we built it for: getting the right line to your teammate at the right second. If you want to see how it works step by step, read how to send a private message in Google Meet. And if you try it and something doesn't work the way you expected, write to us at help@psst.team. We read it ourselves.